Post Title.

I wish the working year only stretched from October to May, she sighed, I can't sit still when it is light out. But I cannot be troubled by lack of sleep, by jittery legs. The giggles are always too close to the surface, it's as though I've spent months short of breath and am finally filling my lungs, it is divine.

I bike home in the early evening, birdsong and breezes lain gently against my racing legs, I smile at strangers in my way, the city spreads out in what are not yet sunset colors, up that last hill you see the whole town and how green it has become, how sparkling the waters, you cannot hate such a sweet view.

She tells me she's looking at apartments now, close to the new job, would that be midtown east? New York lies like a promise in her future, a new husband, a new life, a sweltering jungle of bureacracy and changing the world. I look at a map of Manhattan to help her navigate the grid, every street corner a stab at my poorly rehabilitated heart, I was caught off guard. I stare myself blind at the blue dusk outside, remind myself of giddy ecstasy, of my returned invincibility, take deep breaths. In five hours, the sun will rise again, the darkness always passes, you will lie in your bed wide awake and laugh.

I'm good.
I'm good.
I'm gone.

Suds

Down the stairs and you're in a Lower East Side club, who knew, the stage is really just the end of a couch, the ceiling plastered with old concert posters, the beer is cheap and there's a big bucket of popcorn on the bar, it's perfect. I was already drunk, I'm always drunk in his company, I gathered my baubles and walked home before it was even dark, it was wise.

But my heavy lids had not rested for a mere minute before the eyes behind sprang to life, giggled of stories and May, and before long, pink strands of dawn were sneaking their way in through the blinds. I lay laughing in my bed, watching the sunlight grow, cover every corner. I could not sleep, I did not want to. It was enough just to lay there and be alive.

Today, we waded through her grandmother's apartment, the remains of 88 years and the pictures to tell who they were. Not one picture shows her working. Grandma was all about indulgence. We drank port wine in her honor. I walked home later with a bag full of her old food, enough berries to keep me with jam until winter. The skies were still blue despite the late hour. Life ends disgracefully. We better enjoy our youth while we can, I whispered to the season, but it was too young, still, to understand a word I said.

Ashes and Fire

Do you see that? I asked and pointed at the east. It is dawn. He laughed at my sentiment; we parted ways as I continued giddily toward the blueing skies of morning. That is the magic of May, every time and it never gets old.

The songs streamed through my brain, such an odd venue and such a nervous crowd but the songs carried on unabated, reminded me of the American night, of the religion of music, of the undying delight of passion. They say you can't feel all the time, I scribbled in my notebook as he changed guitars, What do they know? A life without being overwhelmed is no life.

Ten years ago I sat in a cramped and dark apartment, listened to that song and decided my life would be more than that, decided I would run off and see the world, decided I would accept and love the melancholy. Last night I listened to that song and agreed to do it some more. He doesn't know it, but I owe him my convictions.

I have to live that way,
I wrote.
I don't know any other.

Soak

It occurs to me that this must mean something. 
That I keep returning to that thought,
not out of psychological repetition
or cognitive dissonance,
but because it means something,
because there is a point to it. 

I will never have money,
I know that now, and accept it. 
I will not find commercial success
and carry designer bags on my arm. 
But with no one throwing money 
at you
you never have to sell out. 

This must mean something. 
I will revel in the grime,
and suitcases
and trembling streets
until I know what it is. 

That will be your art. 
Just you wait and see.

on Security

Such pretty distraction, such simple deceit. Washing the land with blossom and sunlight, making the beer taste just a little better at the outdoor tables, spreading smiles and wiping the tired from long-sleeping eyes. How easily we are swayed, how quickly all those questions and that weary dread are swept under the carpet, you are distracted, you relent. It is too inviting, your days of darkness too many, the break too welcome.

But for a minute, when the blinds are down, when the piano keys tremble like autumn storms, I remember. The dreams I once had, the boiling blood that rushed through my veins and made me run across the lands in excited fever, the words that built up in me and begged to be written. For a short instant, I glimpse that person I thought I was but whom I so easily abandoned.

The vision leaves me panting on the floor, gasping for air, trying to hold on to something, anything, to keep from falling. This is no life. The money, the apartment, the stocked pantry and vacation plans. They don't mean anything to me. They let me sleep soundly at night, but I don't want to sleep.

I want to live.

May We.

I imagine
if I just let go
now
Spring would
pick me up
and carry me off
trickle down the steps
run through the grass
roll along the flowers
turn me
into a dandelion puff
and blow me into the wind
that I would sail
gently
out to sea
and never look back. 

Fear has nothing
on the return of sunlight.

Hiatus

So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time,
you must get intoxicated,
get intoxicated,
and never pause for rest.
With wine, poetry, or virtue,
as you choose.
-Charles Baudelaire